


Reciprocity

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal Loves Will, Heartache, Loneliness, M/M, Phone Call, Proclamations of love, Will Loves Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is something I wrote a while back after watched Aperetivo for the first time. A phone call between Alana and Will in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reciprocity

‘How long has it been now?’ Will couldn’t ignore the nervous catch in Alana’s voice.

‘Five months. Two weeks. Three days,’ his voice shook somewhat, mirroring Alana’s own hesitancy.

‘You miss him.’

Will closed his eyes briefly as a faint echo of bright, cold pain shot through the scar across his abdomen. He pulled his knees up to his chest, grateful that Alana wasn’t there to see the reaction. The seconds ticked by as he focused on the accelerated thump of his own heart.

‘Will?’ Alana said gently. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes,’ he drew one slightly shaking breath. ‘I’m here.’

‘Do you…’

‘Yes. I miss him,’ Will winced as the words resonated in his ears.

‘After everything he’s done…you still ignore the worst in him,’ it wasn’t a question so much as a declaration.

Will gripped the sheets beneath him as Hannibal’s voice echoed in his subconscious. I want you to believe in the best of me. Just as I believe in the best of you. His throat tightened.

‘A mutually unspoken decision to ignore the worst in one another in order to continue enjoying the best. I know what he’s capable of, Alana,’ he traced a finger along the raised flesh of his scar. It was faintly heated, curved upwards into a grotesque semblance of a smile. ‘So do you.’

He heard Alana’s intake of breath. ‘He broke me. In every sense of the word.’

‘What Hannibal does isn’t personal. He perceives his victims as subhuman. We’re not his victims.’

‘It was personal.’

‘He cared about us.’

‘He cares about you.’

Will’s breath caught in his throat as a steady heat crept up his neck and flooded his face.

‘I’ve known Hannibal for a long time,’ Alana continued, sounding somewhat thoughtful. ‘He was always so self-contained. Aloof. I never saw him in a steady relationship, much less in love. With you…’

‘Stop. Please,’ Will wasn’t above begging. He couldn’t hear this. He had worked for too long to make himself numb, the empty himself of all semblance of feeling towards Hannibal. He fought to keep his breathing even as sweat gathered at the back of his neck. 

‘I see Hannibal in you. Just as I see you in Hannibal. Rarely do I see something so profound and so destructive. I gauged his attraction to you; the way he looked at you was how I imagined myself looking at you. But after a while, it was clear his fascination with you was overwhelming.’

Will’s jaw clenched, his grip on the phone tightening, hot tears spilling down his cheeks. He wondered whether he might vomit.

‘He loves you,’ Alana almost whispered.

Will choked back a kind of strangled sob. The words reverberated around his skull, the words which has such an unfamiliar weight to them, the words he had long since tied to his own feelings for Hannibal, the words that upon consideration were too banal to describe how he felt. He trembled, the torrent of unfamiliar emotions robbing him of all cogent thought other than the response he had long since confined to the very recesses of his mind in a bid to suppress and ignore. The response to a situation he never thought he would have to confront. He drew one shuddering breath, 

‘And I love him.’


End file.
